Better Accomplishment: Wilt Chamberlain's 2 or Larry Bird's 3?

[One_and_Done]

Bird played in a league that was only garbage, not hot garbage, so him.

This does nothing to answer the question. The question wasn't which player had more advanced basketball skills.

The overall strength of the league you play in doesn't inherently make it easier to win unless you are the dominant team. The difficulty in winning is based on the relative strength of your team compared to the best opponent you face. Wilt was not on the Celtics.

------

The Celtics were advantaged in a non reproducible way during the early era of the NBA that it isn't really rational to judge guys in the 60's based on championships the same way you might judge guys in different eras.

In general every evaluation of championship success requires us to look at era, player performance, strength of the players team and strength of opponents (of course hindsight has to be checked as best as possible when doing this too). Championships don't happen in a vacuum.

In the modern NBA, you can't even build and sustain the types of teams the early Celtics had since there was no salary cap until the mid 80's.

Then we have to take into account strategy during the onset of a sport at the professional level. When something is novel, everyone is in a sense guessing (hypothesizing), and we learn from data and trial and watching others and seeing what works and what doesn't or what is more effective vs less effective.

If you're an innovator in the early times of a sport, you will have a larger advantage than in later times, and in the late 50's and 60's you don't have thousands of people breaking down all this film so they can copy everything you do. Nowadays a high-school coach can watch, learn and implement professional coaching strategies using YouTube, not to talk of professional teams abilities to break things down.

So we have to understand what we are comparing when we are making the comparisons.

Yeh I just fundamentally disagree with you.

I'll say this though; a player can transcend their bad league. Bird would be a star today, and I generally rank him around 10th all-time. So I'm not down on Bird per se. He would translate.

Bird's league was still trash compared to today though, and I am not going to reward a guy for being born earlier, because then I'm punishing people for being born too late.

It's too speculative to imagine how someone would play if they grew up today, we can only give them the skillset they actually had. In Bird's case though this isn't much of a problem.

[dhsilv2]

Wilts 2 are an indictment not an accomplishment. There were 8 teams and one other contender during much of his career.

Bird won titles in a league 3x the size and had to beat some extremely good teams to do so (Pistons, Lakers. 76ers

There were 8 teams for 2 of Wilt's seasons.

Fair

There were 10 teams when he won his first title. 17 teams when he won his second title

23 teams for all of Birds titles (up to 27 for the tail end of his career)

Definitely less teams, but with that...the talent concentration was pretty bad in the 80's too. I mean Magic went to like 9 nba finals and bird went to something like 5. You can argue it was a bit better, but it was pretty much two teams for a decade with the pistons and rockets saying hi.

[SilentA]

It's garbage compared to today's league.

Yes, your point is easy to understand. You didn’t seem to get mine. There is no “today’s league” without the likes of Bird.

And there's no physics without some cavemen who built a cart. It doesn't mean those cavemen are comparable physicists to modern ones. You're not better at something because you were the first to do it, in fact that's almost never true.

This pretty much explains why you consistently have bad takes and contradict yourself often . You are only capable of mentally processing things in face value terms and are hard wired to never think deeper.

Like no **** a modern physicist is more knowledgeable than a caveman. But the modern physicist's excellence is necessarily built on prior knowledge that was served to them on a silver platter requiring zero "special" brainpower via high school textbooks and common understanding.

The first person to do something isn't always the best, but to the field or profession as a whole, people who break new ground, demonstrate mastery of their skillset, and contribute to the field at the time are rightly celebrated. A simpleton who memorizes a modern textbook is worthless to the field compared to an innovator who mastered their textbook at the time and went further to make new discoveries. Now go stare at a wall for a few days and try to let it sink in.

Also, I suspect this is too complex for you, but uhh... more equipped people can look at fundamentals and make reasonable predictions about past era people and how they'd translate today. Bird, for e.g., was Jokic-tier observant (court awareness), a 50/40/90 shooter with excellent actual shooting fundamentals, and extremely disciplined. A player with traits like that would easily thrive today. Those traits are just as "defining" as the absolute numbers on the box score, if not more.

[Roger Murdock]

There were 8 teams for 2 of Wilt's seasons.

Fair

There were 10 teams when he won his first title. 17 teams when he won his second title

23 teams for all of Birds titles (up to 27 for the tail end of his career)

Definitely less teams, but with that...the talent concentration was pretty bad in the 80's too. I mean Magic went to like 9 nba finals and bird went to something like 5. You can argue it was a bit better, but it was pretty much two teams for a decade with the pistons and rockets saying hi.

Yeah 80s was basically a 3 horse race - Lakers with a walk to the finals and Celtics vs 76ers early 80s or Pistons late 80s

[og15]

Bird played in a league that was only garbage, not hot garbage, so him.

This does nothing to answer the question. The question wasn't which player had more advanced basketball skills.

The overall strength of the league you play in doesn't inherently make it easier to win unless you are the dominant team. The difficulty in winning is based on the relative strength of your team compared to the best opponent you face. Wilt was not on the Celtics.

------

The Celtics were advantaged in a non reproducible way during the early era of the NBA that it isn't really rational to judge guys in the 60's based on championships the same way you might judge guys in different eras.

In general every evaluation of championship success requires us to look at era, player performance, strength of the players team and strength of opponents (of course hindsight has to be checked as best as possible when doing this too). Championships don't happen in a vacuum.

In the modern NBA, you can't even build and sustain the types of teams the early Celtics had since there was no salary cap until the mid 80's.

Then we have to take into account strategy during the onset of a sport at the professional level. When something is novel, everyone is in a sense guessing (hypothesizing), and we learn from data and trial and watching others and seeing what works and what doesn't or what is more effective vs less effective.

If you're an innovator in the early times of a sport, you will have a larger advantage than in later times, and in the late 50's and 60's you don't have thousands of people breaking down all this film so they can copy everything you do. Nowadays a high-school coach can watch, learn and implement professional coaching strategies using YouTube, not to talk of professional teams abilities to break things down.

So we have to understand what we are comparing when we are making the comparisons.

Yeh I just fundamentally disagree with you.

I'll say this though; a player can transcend their bad league. Bird would be a star today, and I generally rank him around 10th all-time. So I'm not down on Bird per se. He would translate.

Bird's league was still trash compared to today though, and I am not going to reward a guy for being born earlier, because then I'm punishing people for being born too late.

It's too speculative to imagine how someone would play if they grew up today, we can only give them the skillset they actually had. In Bird's case though this isn't much of a problem.

You say you're not going to reward a guy for being born earlier, but in the same vein are suggesting that you will punish a guy for being born earlier.

[dygaction]

Bird was largely responsible for the league no longer being “garbage” so the game grew in popularity for future generations to reap the benefits. I’m sure same can be said for Wilt in his time compared to previous decades.

It's garbage compared to today's league.

Todays league is garbage compared to 2050

Did you switch account? Your takes are not as confrontational or hot as before

[One_and_Done]

Yes, your point is easy to understand. You didn’t seem to get mine. There is no “today’s league” without the likes of Bird.

And there's no physics without some cavemen who built a cart. It doesn't mean those cavemen are comparable physicists to modern ones. You're not better at something because you were the first to do it, in fact that's almost never true.

This pretty much explains why you consistently have bad takes and contradict yourself often . You are only capable of mentally processing things in face value terms and are hard wired to never think deeper.

Like no **** a modern physicist is more knowledgeable than a caveman. But the modern physicist's excellence is necessarily built on prior knowledge that was served to them on a silver platter requiring zero "special" brainpower via high school textbooks and common understanding.

The first person to do something isn't always the best, but to the field or profession as a whole, people who break new ground, demonstrate mastery of their skillset, and contribute to the field at the time are rightly celebrated. A simpleton who memorizes a modern textbook is worthless to the field compared to an innovator who mastered their textbook at the time and went further to make new discoveries. Now go stare at a wall for a few days and try to let it sink in.

Also, I suspect this is too complex for you, but uhh... more equipped people can look at fundamentals and make reasonable predictions about past era people and how they'd translate today. Bird, for e.g., was Jokic-tier observant (court awareness), a 50/40/90 shooter with excellent actual shooting fundamentals, and extremely disciplined. A player with traits like that would easily thrive today. Those traits are just as "defining" as the absolute numbers on the box score, if not more.

Someone who was a pioneer should still get credit for something. That's what we have things like the HoF for. It doesn't mean we should blindly ignore the context they achieved something in. Sometimes the ability they had translates to a superior era, sometimes it doesn't. We all make this adjust already, unless you have George Mikan as the basketball GOAT; I just do it consistently. If Mikan played today he would not be anything like as dominant as in his own time, no matter how generous you are in your assumptions (personally I am not sure he'd even make the league).

A genius like Newton or Einstein can come and learn modern physics and apply their genius to new facts. They remain a genius. A caveman can't. Modern physics is too outside his abilities. You'd have to imagine him growing up in the modern era and learning things as a child like reading and math; and at that point it's too speculative because you're not talking about a caveman anymore, you're inventing a person who never existed.

[One_and_Done]

This does nothing to answer the question. The question wasn't which player had more advanced basketball skills.

The overall strength of the league you play in doesn't inherently make it easier to win unless you are the dominant team. The difficulty in winning is based on the relative strength of your team compared to the best opponent you face. Wilt was not on the Celtics.

------

The Celtics were advantaged in a non reproducible way during the early era of the NBA that it isn't really rational to judge guys in the 60's based on championships the same way you might judge guys in different eras.

In general every evaluation of championship success requires us to look at era, player performance, strength of the players team and strength of opponents (of course hindsight has to be checked as best as possible when doing this too). Championships don't happen in a vacuum.

In the modern NBA, you can't even build and sustain the types of teams the early Celtics had since there was no salary cap until the mid 80's.

Then we have to take into account strategy during the onset of a sport at the professional level. When something is novel, everyone is in a sense guessing (hypothesizing), and we learn from data and trial and watching others and seeing what works and what doesn't or what is more effective vs less effective.

If you're an innovator in the early times of a sport, you will have a larger advantage than in later times, and in the late 50's and 60's you don't have thousands of people breaking down all this film so they can copy everything you do. Nowadays a high-school coach can watch, learn and implement professional coaching strategies using YouTube, not to talk of professional teams abilities to break things down.

So we have to understand what we are comparing when we are making the comparisons.

Yeh I just fundamentally disagree with you.

I'll say this though; a player can transcend their bad league. Bird would be a star today, and I generally rank him around 10th all-time. So I'm not down on Bird per se. He would translate.

Bird's league was still trash compared to today though, and I am not going to reward a guy for being born earlier, because then I'm punishing people for being born too late.

It's too speculative to imagine how someone would play if they grew up today, we can only give them the skillset they actually had. In Bird's case though this isn't much of a problem.

You say you're not going to reward a guy for being born earlier, but in the same vein are suggesting that you will punish a guy for being born earlier.

I'm not punishing him, no more than I'm punishing a guy who got polio. That's just the hand he was dealt. A guy in say the 50s got alot of benefits too, like a garbage amatuer league that had no international or black presence.

[Johnny Bball]

Bird was largely responsible for the league no longer being “garbage” so the game grew in popularity for future generations to reap the benefits. I’m sure same can be said for Wilt in his time compared to previous decades.

It's garbage compared to today's league.

Todays league is garbage compared to 2050

I can't wait until these kids are 40, 50 and everyone tells them everything from when they grew up was trash.

[One_and_Done]

It's garbage compared to today's league.

Todays league is garbage compared to 2050

I can't wait until these kids are 40, 50 and everyone tells them everything from when they grew up was trash.

Well if it's true we should accept it. I kind of think basketball has been gamed out, so I'm not expecting a big shift upwards in skill, but I guess we'll see. There has never been another Kareem or Magic, so some talents are never replicated it seems. I doubt I'll ever see another Lebron.

[Marrrcuss]

Put in a big ole dumb vacuum, huh?

[Johnny Bball]

Todays league is garbage compared to 2050

I can't wait until these kids are 40, 50 and everyone tells them everything from when they grew up was trash.

Well if it's true we should accept it. I kind of think basketball has been gamed out, so I'm not expecting a big shift upwards in skill, but I guess we'll see. There has never been another Kareem or Magic, so some talents are never replicated it seems. I doubt I'll ever see another Lebron.

You don't have any idea what is true and what isn't though.

[70sFan]

I wonder when people stop using this idiotic physicists analogy, especially when they have no idea about physics, Newton or the state of knowledge in the 17th century.

[One_and_Done]

I can't wait until these kids are 40, 50 and everyone tells them everything from when they grew up was trash.

Well if it's true we should accept it. I kind of think basketball has been gamed out, so I'm not expecting a big shift upwards in skill, but I guess we'll see. There has never been another Kareem or Magic, so some talents are never replicated it seems. I doubt I'll ever see another Lebron.

You don't have any idea what is true and what isn't though.

I'll let my arguments speak for me.

[One_and_Done]

I wonder when people stop using this idiotic physicists analogy, especially when they have no idea about physics, Newton or the state of knowledge in the 17th century.

Replace it with math or the ability to aim when throwing an object if you prefer.

[Warriorfan]

Championships are never easy. I'll add this people will often cite Lebron's win over 73 win GS as his biggest accomplishment.

Wilt IMO taking championships away from the most dominant NBA franchise in history adds great weight.

Chamberlain led a very old Lakers team over the Knicks who had 6 HOF in 72

[One_and_Done]

Championships are never easy. I'll add this people will often cite Lebron's win over 73 win GS as his biggest accomplishment.

Wilt IMO taking championships away from the most dominant NBA franchise in history adds great weight.

Chamberlain led a very old Lakers team over the Knicks who had 6 HOF in 72

And if those Knicks played today probably none of them are HoFers.

[Rastas]

I wonder if Bird ever had a non MVP season where he went 50 n 25

Sent from my RMX3031 using RealGM mobile app

[Warriorfan]

Championships are never easy. I'll add this people will often cite Lebron's win over 73 win GS as his biggest accomplishment.

Wilt IMO taking championships away from the most dominant NBA franchise in history adds great weight.

Chamberlain led a very old Lakers team over the Knicks who had 6 HOF in 72

And if those Knicks played today probably none of them are HoFers.

You have your opinion which you can never prove right. Don't seem to know what makes someone eligible for the HOF. Plus it's fact that they are worthy of the HOF which you can never disprove

[70sFan]

Championships are never easy. I'll add this people will often cite Lebron's win over 73 win GS as his biggest accomplishment.

Wilt IMO taking championships away from the most dominant NBA franchise in history adds great weight.

Chamberlain led a very old Lakers team over the Knicks who had 6 HOF in 72

And if those Knicks played today probably none of them are HoFers.

I have very little doubts that Walt Frazier would have been a star today, but how could you know if you've never seen him play even for a minute?